A History of Japan, 1582–1941

Abstract

This 2003 book offers a distinctive overview of the internal and external pressures responsible for the making of modern Japan. L. M. Cullen argues that Japanese policies and fears have often been caricatured in western accounts which have viewed the expansion of the west in an unduly positive light. He shows that Japan before 1854, far from being in progressive economic and social decay or political crisis, was on balance a successful society led by rational policymakers. He also shows how when an external threat emerged after 1793 the country became on balance more open rather than more oppressive and that Japan displayed remarkable success in negotiation with the western powers in 1853–68. In the twentieth century, however, with the 1889 constitution failing to control the armed forces and western and American interests encroaching in Asia and the Pacific, Japan abandoned realism and met her nemesis in China and the Pacific.

When Strength Becomes Weakness: Precolonial State Development, Monopoly on Violence, and Civil War

“…However, they did not develop parallel authority structures during colonial times, and they did not have intrastate armed conflicts after WWII. 11 In the case of Japan, European colonizers began to settle and establish trading ports during the Nanban trade period from the mid-1500s (Cullen, 2003;Laver, 2011), which looked like the initial establishment of parallel authority structures seen in several other cases. However, the Tokugawa Shogunate reversed this trend by implementing strong isolationist policies from the beginning of the 1600s lasting until 1868 (Cullen, 2003;Laver, 2011).…”

“…11 In the case of Japan, European colonizers began to settle and establish trading ports during the Nanban trade period from the mid-1500s (Cullen, 2003;Laver, 2011), which looked like the initial establishment of parallel authority structures seen in several other cases. However, the Tokugawa Shogunate reversed this trend by implementing strong isolationist policies from the beginning of the 1600s lasting until 1868 (Cullen, 2003;Laver, 2011). Korea similarly had a long period of strict isolation during parts of the Joseon (Yi) Dynasty from the mid-1600s until the end of the 1800s, for which it became known in the West as the "Hermit Kingdom" (e.g., Kleiner, 2001, 3-11).…”

Japan: colonization and settlement

“…The fate of the Ainu and the Okinawans was linked to the key themes which would dominate future Japanese colonial expansion: the desire to become a modern state (Barlow 1997); the strongly held ideals of the exclusivity of the Yamamoto (Japanese) race and the inferiority of other Asian races and cultures (Siddle 1996); and the employment of territorial expansion as a method of protection from European and American empire-building in the region (Cullen 2003). The Japanese colonial empire, arguably the only non-Western empire of modern times (Peattie & Myers 1984), began with the cession of Taiwan in 1895 after Japan's success in the First SinoJapanese War (1894-95).…”